Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Idea Of Deep State In American History 20240713

Joining me here to talk about i think this quite important topic are three fantastic historians, all of whom study politics and power in American History. Professor beverly gage of young university. Professor dirk of duke university. And professor michael j. Allen of northwestern university. Im going to set the stage for with four or five minutes of introductory remarks and will introduce each panelist individually before they speak for just 15, 20 minutes apiece. And then we will open the floor to discussion in this roundtable. So we are here today to talk about the origins and the effects of this thing we call the deep state. It is important to say at the outset what historians always like to say. This is not really new. Today, we call it the deep state. In earlier eras, activists talked about the washington establishment, the power elite, the system, and even the military Industrial Complex. Even though those terms have varied throughout the ages, they usually share a lot in common. So the arguments that typically accompany these terms about the deep state or the washington system, they are almost always conspiratorial. They almost always talk about a cabal within the government that is working in secret to drive policy towards their own ends, the cabals own ends, not the good. The people in the deep state seem to range all over the map, depending on the politics of whomever is talking. They can be the intelligence agencies, the cia, the fbi, the military, the National Security council, the bankers, and the globalists, the fossil fuel companies, or unspecified elites. But they almost always have or are pursuing some sort of effort that undermines the government. The core message, over and over again, is that this cabal is either illegitimate itself, it is making the government illegitimate, or it is in cahoots with illegitimate unelected forces, and those shadowy figures or bad actors must be opposed and uncovered for the nation to return to its due course. One of the things i always found interesting about it is the arguments really span the political divide in this red and blue state america. You can find common usage of the deep state on both sides. Today, we hear mostly about it from President Trump and his allies in the republican party, who want to cast out some motivations on the Law Enforcement agencies, the fbi, judges, at times the cia. But it wasnt too long ago when leftwing critics were alleging there was a deep state alliance between, say, halliburton and the Oil Companies and the white house that was ostensibly driving policy in iraq and even afghanistan. So where did these terms come from . What were the earlier analogues . How new are they . Did they come from the United States . Where they imported from outside the United States . Perhaps the most important question by my light, even more important than asking where they came from is where they are going and what deeper cultural proponents are empowering and propelling these arguments forward, giving them force . Historians usually like to look for underlying structure, for specific events or key arguments. What persistent or common conditions exist over time that produce a common response . Even if it has different names and in different places. So thats basically what were going to do with our introductory remarks here today. We have three historians here who will speak for about 15 minutes each, and then we will open the floor to the audience and have a roundtable discussion on the deep state. So our first panelist is michael j. Allen. He is associate professor of history at northwestern university, where he researches the history, memory, and politics of american empire in the 20th century. He is the author of until the last man came home pows, mias, and the unending vietnam war, which explored the legacies of american defeat in the vietnam war in u. S. Politics and diplomacy. And i just want to add after teaching it this past semester for the first time, it taught me an enormous amount about the strange legacies of the p. O. W. Flags i see in every cemetery and parade i go to. I learned a lot about john mccain and ross perot, too. Thank you for that book. Michael is currently working on a book called new politics, the imperial presidency. The pragmatic left and the problem of democratic power, 1933 to 1981, which offers the first indepth study of how debates sparked by involvement in vietnam altered the very structure and terms of the postworld war ii u. S. Politics and Foreign Policy. So michael is going to start us off with some remarks on how the legacies of distrust from the cold war era actually shape the conversation on the deep state today. Michael . Thank you. I would just like to start by thanking aaron for stepping in. Our original chair and commentator, robert dean, is unable to be here due to a family emergency that called him away. Aaron was generous enough to join us today. And im sure he will have many valuable insights to our conversation later. Let me get started so we have plenty of time to have that conversation. My task here, i think, is in part to lay out the current conversation about the deep state in the United States and to talk a little bit about american thinking on this problem of state power, particularly in the postworld war ii era, and how it sort of led us to our present moment. In his recent book the deep how an army of bureaucrats protected barack obama and is working to destroy the trump agenda, former chairman of the House Committee on oversight and government reform retired congressman, the subject as a permitted class of democrats, republicans, federal bureaucrats and entrenched washington, d. C. , and corridor insiders trying to weaponize everything in their power to destroy President Trump. Aided by trumps endorsement over twitter, his expose debuted at number seven on the New York Times best seller list where it joined another book the russia hoax, which debuted at number one on the list and has spent ten weeks there. And janine pirros liars, leakers and the case against the antitrust conspiracy, which also debuted number one and spent 13 weeks on the list. These are just three of the many many books that have been published by trump insiders, supporters, fox news analysts, and the like over the past 18 months or so. These three titles, which were all on the New York Times best seller list at the same time in the fall of 2018 improved upon the general course of killing the deep state the fight to save President Trump, which spent just three weeks on the New York Times list earlier in 2018. But like other trump operatives and supporters who produced such books over the past year, corsey had the distension of battling the deep state be on the page, having been called before a grand jury to testify to his role in coordinating the Trump Campaign dealings with wikileaks about his plans to push russian hacked email from dnc servers in the public in the 2016 election. Having argued already in print that the russia investigation was, quote, a deep state plan engineered by democrat operatives to put the president under an investigation with unlimited scope, unquote, corsey could not have been surprised when fbi agent stopped on his door with subpoenas to testify, which he called forced lying testimony, if that is what it takes to achieve deep state political objectives. After all, special Counsel Robert Mueller was according to corsi a deep state operative who served both the bush and obama administrations as the attorney general from 2001 to 2013. In fact, mueller was director of the fbi during those 12 years, not attorney general. It is an error typical of corseys work, but one that makes little difference, given the expansive conspiracy that he conjures in his work, which included, quote and this page is on the handout. You might want to take a look at it, because its fairly amazing. Which included, quote, the cia, nsa and other intelligence agencies that maintain a commitment to a globalist new world order in cooperation with the federal reserve, the comptroller of the currency, as well as federal Law Enforcement agencies, including the fbi and doj, to allow clandestine operations, including illicit drug dealing and supplying weapons to terrorist groups that further the new world order goals of the International Global elite, who also control the united nations, the International Monetary fund and the european union. I could not get that all out in a single breath. Lest we dismiss this long cast of characters as simply a circus sideshow with little relevance to matters of state craft and diplomacy, it must be emphasized how central these ideas of a deep state conspiracy are to National Politics, Foreign Policy, and International Relations at the present moment. First and foremost, they are taken seriously by the president , his top advisers, and most avid supporters, and motivated such actions as the 2017 firing of fbi james comey, attorney general William Barrs ongoing inquiry into the origins of the fbis investigation of russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as recent news as the Cyber Command placing malware inside of computers, controlling the russian power grid without notifying the president , for fear he might count countermand the operation or disclose it to russian officials, given his dit dstrusf National Security agencies, particularly on issues pertaining to russia and cybersecurity. These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. Just as it is the only sign of a deeper problem. The deep state has allowed trump and those around him to describe a broader system of often invisible and unaccountable power that they see as concentrated in washington, but extended to new york, paris, berlin, with Branch Offices in london and menlo park. It includes the key elements of military and financial might in the United States and europe. It also includes leading media and intelligentsia that allegedly dominate the Global Economy and geopolitics. As Jason Chaffetz put it, u. S. President s come and go, Political Parties win one election and lose the next, but the deep state goes on. It is the state within a state. What from calls, the swamp, or at other times, simply the elite. These ideas are broadly understood. The march 2018 poll showed just 37 of americans had heard of the deep state or were familiar with that nomenclature. However, it also showed that threequarters of americans believe there was a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly manipulate or direct National Policy. In broad distrust of such people helped make trump president. It is fundamental to all he does and all he represents. From his hatred of the press to his disdain for traditional allies and security and trade agreements, to his embrace of rogue regimes to his open contempt for diplomacy or even civility. In trumps estimation, the powers that be have bullied, bankrupted, and belittled him and his people for too long. His presidency represents their comeuppance. However reductive, this is a systemic view of power in its operation in america and the world, and helps to explain why trump has upended political alliances and traditions. Since Richard Nixons election, repu5t79m have prided themselves on the close ties to the Nations Armed forces and its National Security agencies, while blasting democrats on weak on defense. Democrats have tried to disprove such things. By spending lavishly on defense. Both bill clinton and barack obama have at times ceded the case to their republican opponents by regularly appointing republicans as secretary of defense and naming republican holdovers to head the fbi and cia. The cia which corsi locates as the center of an extraconstitutional deep state that controls both parties, unquote. This tendency to follow in republican footsteps on display in obamas decision to keep robert gates as the secretary of defense despite his services as george bush sr. s cia director and his oversight of george bush jr. s iraq wars in iraq and afghanistan, along with keeping Robert Mueller on at the fbi is possible for the idea of private security establishment in the present moment. Former republican congressional staffer put it in his 2016 book the deep state, did hope and change really change anything . Its not just a question that lofton asked but its a question that sarah palin famously asked when she said how did that whole hopy, changy thing work out for you . It is a surprise to see a republican president embroiled in such conflict with the National Security bureaucracy, including fbi director james comey, who trump fired soon after taking office, secretary of state secretary james mattis, who resigned, and former cia director john brennan, who trump threatened to strip of his secret clearance after he repeatedly accused trump of treason along with the aforementioned mueller and his witchhunt of the administration. Trumps hostility towards these men surprised official washington more than anyone. When president elect trump took to twitter to needle brennan for an intelligence briefing on the socalled russian hacking, unquote, suggesting more time was needed to build the case, Chuck Schumer took to msnbc to warn him. Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from sunday of getting back at you, unquote. Two and a half years later and two months after the mueller report, trump remains unbound by washingtons rules and democrats have no plan to bring him to heal beyond hoping that mueller will testify on capitol hill. In reality, ways they have proved incapable of doing themselves, which only underscores the question of who really rules washington, elected officials or washington bureaucrats . Trumps battle with the bureaucracy have also called into question pieties that have sustained u. S. Foreign policy since woodrow wilson. On super bowl sunday 2017, for instance, trump responded to critics who accuse them of that accused him of close ties to Vladimir Putin by saying you think of a country is so innocent . Our country does plenty of ki killing. Such a frank admission caused ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee adam schiff to sputter, this is insxlikable i inexplicably bizarre as it is untrue. Does he not see the damage he does with comments like that . Most aassuredly, trump does. But he weighs the damage done mainly to washington insiders who accrue denying their own dirty secrets in order to better deceive his people. As retired berkeley defense professor wrote in the deep state, which is a scholarly work on the subject although we may want to debate how scholarly it is, deep state deceptions are not designed to deceive americas enemies, but first and foremost to deceive americans, conditioning them to accept security measures at home and warmaking abroad. Trump and his inhouse intellectuals, steve bannon, sean hannity, jerome corsi, whose works always include the fact that he has a phd are teaching voters to think in these terms, which ones were reserved for graduate seminars via his own reality show theatrics. But these ideas predate trump. They exist independently of him. They exploit his rise more than his rise explains them. The deep state makes sense to trump voters for obvious reasons. First and foremost, it accounts for the pronounced and growing economic inequality in the United States and the world and helps to explain how and why the privilege and powerful profited so handsomely in recent decades, despite their failures in 9 11, the iraq war and the Global Financial crisis, even as everyone else suffered. Second, it explains the oddly bifurcated structure of power in the United States, where the federal government is capable of sustaining wars and bailing out banks that fail but is unable to address basic needs of ordinary americans. Finally, explains why insurgent political movements and the politicians they sent to washington to affect change have found themselves stymied at every turn, defined as a legitimate, and unamerican, by government insiders whom insurgents dont respect but cannot evict from power. Each of these conundrums before they fueled the rage at trump rallies. While theyve become more acute during the last 20 years, all were present, quote, at the creation if you will at the National Security state. And theyve existed along the state of the current state of war that the United States entered into in 1941. Distrust defined conservative responses to Franklin Roosevelts managerial liberalism in the 1930s and 1940s, including opposition to an enlarged military establishment that he and his successor harry truman helps to create, which conservatives like senator robert taft warned put the nation on a slippery slope to a garrison state. If tafts successors made peace with the Security State, left liberals came to suspect the cold war consensus it required that substituted the pursuit of profit and power for the promise of social democracy offered in the new deal. C. Wright mills 1956 book the power elite targeted American Power and had expanded in the 1940s and 50s and had become sk consequence traited among a small copper of executive decisionmakers, who were called the ones who decide. They operated according to a military definition of reality that was formed and reinforced through what he called administrative routines in small closed intimate groups that were accessible to the public. He emphasized the interlocking and overlapping nature of corporate and state power. In washington as well as on wall street and at west point, he argued a small group of men gain power through appointments rather than elections. With the unified authority unchallenged by politicians and congress, where he set the differences between the two parties so far as National Issues are concerned are very narrow and very mixed up. His contemporaries soon coined the phrase the establishment to the deep state to describe this power elite. William f. Buckley claims to have been the first to use the word the establishment in a speech to the National War College in 1956, admitting his audience was confused by its meaning. But buckley borrowed the term from british journalist henry fairly, who used it in 1955 to refer to the whole matrix of official relations in which power is exercised. A web of associations so dense and so deep that they dont need to be articulated. He himself referred in his work to what he variously called the executive establishment, the military astonishment, the permanent war establishment, and the National Establishment throughout his book. The establishment the charleston news and courier informed its readers is a general term for those who hold dependable measure of power and influence in this country irrespective of what administration occupies the the white house. The perfect establishment figure, agreed harvard economist was, quote, the republican call to service in a Democratic Administration or the vice versa. They were, he quiped, the pivotal figures who made possible the cold war consensus. For mills, galbreth and contemporary revisionist historians who were busy redefining u. S. Diplomatic history in the late 1950s and early 60s to emphasize continuity and consensus rather than conflict and rupture, there was something inherently suspect about such shape shifters who won power not by winning arguments and consistent elections but by forming consensus behind closed doors. These men raised a generation of new left scholars and activists who learned to scrutinize washingtons best and brightest in order to explain how and why u. S. Leaders embarked on duplicitous disasters in cuba, vietnam, iran, chile, and the Watergate Complex in the 1960s and 70s. Left liberals like mcgeorge bundy, henry stimpson, dean turned phd who led two democratic president s to disaster in vietnam and a National Security adviser. Henry kissinger worked in the Kennedy White house before joining the nixon administration. The new right activists called, quote, convergence between the republican and democratic parties so as to eliminate Foreign Policy from political campaigns, unquote. But both these sides, william f. Buckleys and william shaftlies, as well as the tom hadens agreed the only way to fix the broken system of misgovernance and, quote, establish greater democracy in america as sds put it was to abolish the Political Party stalemate in favor of what sds called two genuine parties centered around issues and essential values. As it put it in the statement. And both sides set out to do just that. The left liberal reformers who stripped cold war conservative democrats of power through reforms while conservatives purged rockefeller republicans from their ranks. All this was backed up by congressional liberals who launched a decadelong season of inquiries beginning in 1966 and ending with the hearings in 1975, which dragged deep state dirty laundry into the harsh light of public scrutiny. In its wake, the National Security establishment found itself under siege and adrift. A lost tribe of neocons, wandering in the wilderness of electoral politics that was suddenly dominated by insurgents such as jimmy carter and ronald reagan. But it sheltered in place within the Security State it had helped to build, hunkering down into what we might call the deep state. To defend its guiding presence, despite newer, more confidentialual rhetoric only to reemerge with new power after 9 11, but perhaps with no Greater Public legitimacy. To conclude, what takeaways does this history offer as we puzzle over the place of the deep state in our current politics and what discourse about it could teach historians about how we should approach it . I would like to offer three thoughts, which i will keep brief but hope to elaborate on in q a. First, public distrust of the National Security state is not new. Nor is limited to the political fringe. Second, the persistence of public debate about the proper role and authority of the Foreign Policy establishment highlights the establishment of revisionist reproaches is first and foremost to internal dynamics and conditions to explain u. S. Data actions to the third and finally, this demonstrates the danger empire poses to democracy. Trumps rise to power feeds on the same fears of undemocratic, unchangeable power that motivated revisionist histories of u. S. Foreign relations in the 1960s, 70s and beyond. However unlikely it is that trump will address the conditions that give rise to those fears, their persistence on both ends of the political spectrum indicates a broader loss of faith in american democracy. Let me conclude with this bit from William Appleman williamsons 1980 essay empire of a way of life in which he wrote imperialism has a meaning, the loss of sovereignty, control over essential issues and decisions. In that fundamental sense he continued, quote, the coast of empires is not properly tabulated orn dead or maimed or wasted resources but rather in the loss of our vie ttality as citizens. They have increasing seized to participate in the process of selfgovernance, granting sovereignty to the establishment. Those in the out of government ordered the priorities and relationships in america and the world, unquote. In a democracy, williams continued,0nmy we the citizens are supposed to be the establishment. But by describing our governance to what he called vague shape hunting the corridors of power, we limit ourselves to choosing between generally minor variations of one theme and fostering an illusion that electing or appointing different people will produce change that never comes. His analysis as much about where we are and how we got here, but itbp g of no easy solutions as to how to get out. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, michael. Our second speaker is dirk from duke university. Dirk researches the histories of militarism, empire and warfare in germany and the United States in the long 20th he is the author of militarism in a global age, naval ambitions in germany and the United States before world war i, which vj i demonstrated tb general and in particular a mentor to a chicagobased historian. It, perhaps, is only appropriate to encounter it as an analytic when we consider the origins of this concept as used by scott, the scholar usually credited for introducing the term deep state to the debate over the american state and who is arguably its most prolific and imaginative analyst. We can trace the notion of the deep state in the underlying idea of a dual state with a series of references to the work of germans. Here in 1955 article published in the bulletin of atomic scientists and then republiclished in the purpose of american politics. The famous book on the nazidual state First Published in 1941. The link between scott and these germans is the work of swedish critical Security Studies scholar, whom scott had credited repeatedly for shaping his thinking about state duality and the deep state, including the coining of the term itself. But it is not my intention to make an argument about the alleged centrality. It is obvious that to talk about the deep state has various origins and developed in multiple context. Academically, the concept of the deep state has developed its greatest power in scholarship in modern turkey and egypt. In the United States, the term deep state has attained great prominence and contemporary political discourse, thanks to President Trump and his political allies. While employments of the term remain rare in academic writings about the u. S. State of politics in our field. It did not come out of nowhere. The specter of seemingly hidden and unaccountable forces capturing control of the state or scheming against the duly elected representatives of the peoples political imagination. First i want to place deep state in the context of three broader ways of thinking and arguing and second, i will focus on what i consider one of the most important previous iterations of the idea of some sort of state duality, the notion of military and Industrial Complex, as proffered by president eisenhower. We can place the current talk of the deep state within the continuous making and remaking of three broader and possibility ov overlapping ways of thinking and arguing, each with their own registers of conspiratorial assumptions. Theres a history of conspiracy theories in general of paranoid thinking. Conspiracy theories have always been an entirely legitimate form of thought and knowledge, shared by both elite and ordinary people and central to political discourse, whether they involve the british crown, slave power, the crown in keeping subjects just to name more prominent ones in the 19th and 20th centuries. These conspiracy theories were never confined to the margins but as much at the Political Center as the periphery. Seemingly reasonable ways to explain the world and movement of politics and continued the mid 20th century, despite efforts undertaken by a sector of the nations class, including most prominently hoffstetter himself to stigmatize him. Second, theres a most specific history of particular mode of thinking and arguing about politics, which sets the virtuous people against the interests of elites and its own insinuations. The history of what Michael Kalin has dubbed the populist persuasion has always exceeded the history of the late 19th and early 20th century capitalized populism and its distinct Party Political expressions. Nor should it be collapsed into todays nativist plurist populism in the United States or, for that matter, europe. In the modern United States, populist politics is to much avail and placing itself in different and everchanging political spectrums. A form of political mobilization and expression of discontent in response to recurring crises of representation within the u. S. Form of representative democracy. Third, there is the emergence of the diffuse language of some form of state reality, involving the public constitutional state and some hidden and more powerful entity beside it. In secuin securitizing governme. This never continued into discourse. Talked about the existence of what he called a dual state in his aforementioned 1955 study of the u. S. State department. Dual state composed of the rulebound regular state hierarchy and a more or less hidden security hierarchy, which would act in parallel to the former, yet also monitor and exert control over its decisions. The best selling book by journalist david weiss and thomas roth cia and u. S. Intelligence published in 64, sting wshed between the visible government and invisible shadow government a quote hid den interlocking machinery representing the real power comprised of individuals and agencies drawn by the visible government but also individuals and agencies relating to the sphere of business and nongovernmental organizations. The most prominent duality, one that purposefully set the key organs of free government against a new quasiatomic center of power from within was framed in different terms. Im referring here, of course, to the notion of the military Industrial Complex that eisenhower advanced in his address from 1961. In a safer set iting, eisenhowes address and his discourse in the military Industrial Complex do not require much explanation. Everyone will be familiar with the setting and context for the president ial act of speech. It represented a culmination point of eisenhowers longstanding frustration with the course of policy making in the field of National Security, ability to impose his priorities with budget and military needs on congress and the pentagon and critique of military threats and requirements with vested interest. Broadly speaking, what we have here then is a prominent member of the policy making, voicing his concerns about the ramifications of the creation of the National Security state and sustain militarization. Finally, eisenhower talked about the conjunction of arms and history and claims of power by, quote, a scientific technological elite registered the realities of the political economy of americas Defense Sector in its fully developed form. Lavishly funded military agencies, nonprofit think tanks and universities, on the verge of its incipient deregularization and demilitarization to use his language. Eisenhowers discourse in the military Industrial Complex and mark it as a precursor of todays target of the deep state. First, eisenhower describes the military Industrial Complex not simply as a lobby exercising what he called unwarranted influence in the council of government but rather presented the Industrial Complex as a powerful, somewhat Hidden Center of power from within. In his rendering the military Industrial Complex was nothing less than an autonomous power within the system of government, located outside of public view and democratic control and also, this is important i think, straddling the Public Private divide in accomplishing state institutions, private industry and organized science. Second, the invocation of a military Industrial Complex represented a move away from more images that eisenhower had used before when describing what he considered to be the condition of american politics in the era of the cold war. Most prominent among them, the garrison. Describes that state as a unified structure, leaving remarkable little room for civilization. Prior to 61, eisenhower repeatedly talked about the impending garrison state and grim paraphernalia, drawing on more specific arguments, but he was fully talking about a unidirectional, allencompassing, the view of change that was also present in ideas about socalled militarization of america, americas Political Class and intelligentsia. Military Industrial Complex in its misplace of power is a certain a. Mbivalence, a democratic critique on behalf of a more rational Security State or as a vigorous defense of a Constitutional Government of a free nation, or both. Once introduce bid eisenhower into political discourse, the notion proved efficacious enough. They could tie it to kptism to military and the state or they could use it in liberal or conservative fashions, to denounce particular practices of the military economy as wasteful and the unfortunate product of selfish interests run amuck and to demand more effective controls as rational organization to reliance on regulatory public acts or market mechanisms. So eisenhowers notion fit in a third way of thinking or arguing conceptualize current talk about the deep state in the u. S. , emergence of the National Security state and Big Government in mid 20th century. In its emphasis on a duality built into the state, it represent represented a shift away from a more onedimensional, more conspiratorial, populous critique as selfish interest, which had occupied center stage in american politics in the early to mid 1930s. It had done so in the context of the broadbased mobilization across the industries and military allies in general and to work of the socalled committee in particular, that is the senates 1934 to 1936 special committee on investigation of the armaments industry. There were at least two broader contexts with this within the committee. First, vigorous National Politics to confront the systemic problems that might cause another war. Second, the u. S. Debate about the merits of increased Public Ownership control and regulation in military industrial sphere that was already effectively semi nationalized, debate linked to other political struggles over enterprise. Most directly, terms against the manipulation of the political process for their own selfish ends. At the center were images of corruption, of interests operating nefariously outside the law and accountability, meaning arms manufacturers engaging in bribery, bit fixing and other shady business methods. Beating the patriotic drum to mask their pursuit of profit and creating and causing conflicts to sell their products and, if possible, to all sides. All of this was best captured in the notion of merchants of deaths, title of the bestselling book on the armamentes industry by hannigan. 1932 published own book lands critique of the interest in the field of naval policy along such lines. This approach called the devil theory of war, revealing the revelations of the committee, emphasizing the merits of a more Structural Analysis of economics. When also kashzed this sort of talk associated, the committee was not simply considered political appeal in general but political motivations. In the 30s, critique of the interest and collusion among military elites in a populous conspiratorial key easily functioned as a site for various diverge enter politics. It was distinct to the context over both the u. S. s foreign political culture in fastmoving world of Global Politics and the new deal. Debate over why the United States had entered into world war i. In important ways, eisenhowers discourse in the military complex, invocation of what eisenhower called large arms industry transposed in 1930s critique to a different key yet there remained direct echoes. After all, military complex loomed, invoking the danger of misplaced power was deliberately sought or not. Moreover, merchants of deaths coupled with the admission that they ought not dictate National Policy appeared in a key memorandum for file produced by the president s speechwriting staff in october 1960, which identified for the first time the actual subject. And on more than one occasion, eisenhower himself advanced a more conspiratorial, populous view of business elites. Quote, theres a real danger of the military ganging up with powerful elitists. The military needed to stand, quote, firm against greed, corruption, favoritism and against monopoly. So i am coming to the end. I have sought to place talk about american deep state. And in so doing i first directed attention to three broader ways of thinking and arguing within which we can place this talk. I then focus on eisenhowers discourse on the military Industrial Complex as a key intercedent in the discourse of the deep state. It does not talk about the security agencies beyond the military. So important to much of todays deep state literature. By way of conclusion, let me suggest that thinking about the deep state in the same context as military Industrial Complex is also salutary for a different reason. Notion of the military Industrial Complex entered the world in an act of political speech but then was picked up for use as an analytical category by scholars of different perfect situations. In other words, thinking about the deep state through the lens of the military Industrial Complex invites us to consider the notion of the deep state as a possible conceptual term with analytical promise. Promise not only for the study of turkey and egypt or of germany, the historical place with which i began, but also of the United States. It reminds us that we, as historians, whether we like it or not, always draw on key words of political discourse for our own analytical categories. We may choose from them carefully, impose our own definitions and use them in a disciplined manner. Thus, we may decide that the deep state should not qualify for analytical pick up, but we do well to recognize theres no meaningful history to be had beyond the political semantics of our own times. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, our third speaker today is professor beverly gage. She is the professor at yale university, where she is also the professor of american studies and the director of yales program of grand strategy, which im proud to be a graduate of. She is also which was made into a fulllength documentary by pbs. She has published in every major historical journal i know, is a regular guest on pbs newshour. She is now writing a major new biography of former fbi director j. Edgar hoover entitled g man. The floor is yours. Thanks. Im going to talk today about a key study in the deep state and that is, as aaron suggested, j. Edgar hoover. Im in the final stages of writing a biography of hoover. I think, certainly, a popular perception, hoover represents many of the features of what may be labeled the deep state that may have come up here. I wrote down some of the key words from the introduction, conspiratorial, illegitimate, unelected. This image of hoover as one of the 20th century, one of American Historys great unaccountable bureaucrats. Someone who sat in the background exercising great power without a lot of accountability. There is a lot of truth to this image. Just as a reminder of j. Edgar hoover and his place in the American History, he was fbi director from 1924 to 1972. He was head of the fbi for 48 years. That means he came to power in that job at the age of 29 and he died in that same job at the age of 77. He was appointed under calvin coolidge, and he lasted through coolidge, then through herbert hoover, so was there in the early years of the great depression. He was there through the threeplus terms of Franklin Roosevelts presidency, so through the new deal and into the second world war, when roosevelt died, truman kept him on. So hoover was there through the early cold war and through mccarthyism. When truman left, eisenhower came in and hoover stayed through both eisenhowers president ial terms, through the developing cold war, through the 1950s, through the rise of civil rights politics in the United States. He stayed on through john f. Kennedy. After kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he stayed on for lyndon jo johnsons presidency and when Lyndon Johnson left office, he stayed on through Richard Nixons presidency and finally died in the position of fbi director in may of 1972. So, throughout this period, as you can see, hoover lasted one of the great themes here in this world of kind of bipartisan establishment politics, he lasted through eight president s, through almost two dozen attorneys general, republicans and democrats alike. He was, of course, never elected to this position, but was reappointed repeatedly. And over the course of his career, he built the fbi from being a rather small and insignificant bureaucracy, the investigative wing of the Justice Department, into a substantial part of the National Security state and an institution that was created almost wholly within his own control and in his own image. And in our popular imagination, i think the answer to how he did that tends to emphasize a lot of these kind of deep state terms. I think most prominently, the idea is that hoover controlled so much power and lasted for such a long time by ruling through fear, through intimidation, by creating a bureaucracy that emphasized secrecy and that, as i suggested, really began manipulating politics in a secretive way from behind the scenes, intimidated president s, intimidated congressmen, created a culture of fear that allowed him to stay in office for so long. And in those terms, ideologically, we understand hoovers greatest influence on american politics to have been really as a conservative political figure who wielded a lot of this power in the service of containing popular movements rather broadly, but in particular for targeting the american left, for targeting liberals, particularly the communist party in the 1940s and 50s, but moving on to many of the left movements of the 60s and 70s. This is popular in many ways, also our scholarly image of hoover, the ultimate accountable bureaucrat, an ideologue to contain popular politics and to contain the left and liberalism most broadly. And did this really in secret, almost as a rogue actor, someone following his own agenda, someone who had enough concentrated power again to shape politics from outside of the electoral system and outside the democratic system in many ways. There is a great deal of truth to this story. I want to suggest and push back against the idea of the deep state, that that story is largely overblown, or at least it doesnt tell us about key parts of hoovers life and about the creation, particularly ,of the National Security state, that have, in many ways, certainly in popular discourse fallen off the map. I would suggest that far from being a rogue actor and far from being someone who operated outside of electoral politics, hoover, we are to see as producing other parts of the state and, in particular, that the fbi emerged as part of the same liberal state that began to grow and had its greatest moments of growth in the 1930s and in the 1960s. And that far from being solely a conservative, constraining force on leftist and liberals, the fbi was in many ways a product of the same state building impulses that produced the Social Security administration and the Civil Rights Act later on. So, i think as we can see with hoover, i want to make three key arguments. One is that by emphasizing hoover as this unaccountable bureaucrat, as a kind of product of deep state impulses, it doesnt tell us very much about, first of all, how it is that he came to power. Before he exercised power, how it was that an institution like the fbi was actually built. I think it doesnt explain all the time and energy that hoover and other figures at the fbi put into cultivating political relationships and, in particular, relationships with elected public officials. And finally, and most importantly, it doesnt explain hoovers enormous popularity over the course of his career. We tend to think of hoover as one of the great villains of American History, i think largely coming out of this moment that michael discussed in the 19 70s, a moment of expose, characterized in particular in this case by the Church Committee and its revelation about the practices of the fbi. And i think out of that has come the idea that nobody in washington really understood or knew what it was that the fbi was up to and that the public at large, had they known really what hoover was doing, would have rejected the kinds of politics that he represented. But i want to take us back to an earlier moment before those exposes of the 1970s, really to remind everyone that hoover was one of the most Popular Figures in American History in the 20th century. He was one of the best respected Public Servants in this period from the 20s through the 1970s. And while many of the details of what the fbi was up to, programs like cointel pro, other secret operations were, of course, secret, large swaths of what the fbi was doing was perfectly public, both in terms of its campaign against its domestic Law Enforcement powers, but also in terms of its intelligence operation. Political intelligence in the domestic sphere, particularly. Again, against the communist party, against other left groups. The details werent necessarily public, but the agenda was very much out there and was pretty widely supported by the American Public. And so i think as we talk about the deep state, we tend to talk about american suspicions of this kind of power without actually thinking about the ways in which that can actually often be embedded in and supported both by elected officials in washington and also by the American Public at large. So, to just give you a quick taste of this, i want to talk a little bit about hoovers relationship with two president s, who we might not necessarily think of as aligning very well with j. Edgar hoovers own politics. Those are the folks that i would characterize as the two greatest liberal president s of the 20th century, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, far more than any other president s throughout hoovers long reign. These are the figures that, first of all, in of all in roosevelts case gave the fbi the power they came to have. And in johnsons case allowed that power to continue to exist in the critical period of the 6 60s and 70s when the fbi became so controversial. So starting out with roosevelt, again, i think we tend to put roosevelt and hoover in rather different ideological categories. We think of roosevelt as the architect of a liberal state and j. He hedgar hoover as operatin different sphere. It is roosevelt more than any other president that built the architecture of the fbi and, in fact, willing also for his own purposes gave hoover many of the areas of jurisdiction and power that he came to have. The bureau itself was created in 1908. Again, a rather small investigative body within the Justice Department during world war i. It had expanded out to perform the widespread effort ands political surveillance within the United States. But when hoover took on the job of fbi director in 1924, there had been a real backlash against those kinds of political operations. And many of the powers that the bureau had had in the teens and 20s particularly in terms of surveillance of political radicals and other political groups within the United States had been curtailed. And so hoover spent much of the in 1920s working on a bureau as a small organization, perfecting the bureaucratic processes, no the exercising a tremendous amount of power. Its when the new deal comes along that that really begins to change. And roosevelt did things for j. Gar hoov edgar hoover that formed the architecture for the fbi and gave him his own personal power. Many were done with the full consent of congress and went through congressional processes. Others were done through scuff processes and the accrual of executive power. First of these was an enormous expansion in the 1930s and the fbis jurisdiction in terms of domestic Law Enforcement. So in the 30s, largely in response to concerns about bank robbery, kidnapping, other forms of crime, the fbi began to get a much larger menu of federal crimes that it was responsible for. This is organized around john dillinger, the storied figures of that age. But really in that moment that the fbi becomes the dominant federal Law Enforcement agency, particularly having to do with bank robbery, kidnapping, the federal government is expanding, other things are becoming federal crimes. So as youre beginning to get greater regulation of banking, the fbi also comes in and begins to be responsible for bank robbery as a crime. So you begin to build an fbi domestic Law Enforcement duties and that is through democratic processes. That is through Congress Passing laws. That is through the president signing off on them. So that is sort of piece one of the architecture. Piece two is it is really under roosevelt that the fbi learns to sell itself as a popular institution. I think we tend to, again, when we talk about the deep state, we dont tend to talk about its popular constituency, about the popular image about the idea that certain parts of the National Security establishment, the military, have a popular constituency that mobilizes on their behalf. And in hoovers case in the 1930s, really drawing upon roosevelts lessons that government and government services, something that had to be sold and promoted to the American People, the fbi gains not only its Public Relations apparatus but enormous fame and hoover himself becomes really a household name in the 1930s as a law man, and as someone who sort of fighting on behalf of the American People. As roosevelt becomes concerned by 1936 about the war in europe and its possible ramifications here at home, the possibility of that point of war in europe, he begins to turn to the fbi and reauthorize it to serve a more expansive, political surveillance capacity. He authorizes the fbi to begin investigating nazis and communists. He gives the fbi control over espionage and subversion and sabotage within the war. And from the period of 1939 to 1941, when roosevelt is feeling constrained by Public Opinion which is very much against u. S. Involvement in the war, he works very closely with the fbi to begin building a new intelligence apparatus that is going to serve the purposes of the war. Much of that goes on before the u. S. Entered the war. It seems pretty clear that he would have done even more with the fbi both had hoover not stopped him and had roosevelt not died. There are two interesting moments in the 40s in which roosevelt is really pushing for fbi expansion and in one case hoover is a constraint and another roosevelt dies. When japanese internment comes along, there is a lot of enthusiasm for fbi to begin pushing back against that. The department of justice and the fbi both oppose the policy of japanese internment. So it happens in large part through other channels. At the moment that roosevelt dies, he was considering taking up the idea when the war came to an end, it ought to be the fbi in charge of global surveillance, making the fbi into a proet yto cia. So in the 1930s, the point to take away is that fbi is not operating on its own. It is operating both in conversation with congress, in conversation with the presidency, and in many ways is being empowered by the president s own agenda. Hoover is certainly pushing some of this. In closing, i want to jump quickly to the 1960s. And then offer a few last thoughts. I said if roosevelt is the president responsible for creating the fbi in many ways, it is Lyndon Johnson who allows hoover to stay on. In the natural course of things, there was a rirnetirement age o 70. Hoover should have retired in 1965. Had things been allowed to go their own natural course. Lyndon johnson at the moment he becomes president decides that one of his first acts is going to be to exempt j. Edgar hoover from federal retirement provisions and keep him on in power. They were neighbors. They were very good friends. Johnson saw that hoover was an enormously popular political figure, someone in part because of his conservative political constituency could help johnson with the more conservative elements of the democratic party. And in part that hoover would, in fact, serve many of the goals that johnson had for his own presidency. And from 64 into 65, johnson more than any other president really uses the fbi to support his own political agenda, to secure his own reelection. And to forward both his more conservative and more liberal political goals. Im happy to talk more about any of that in the q a. But in finishing up, i suppose i want to push back on a few of the concepts of the deep state at least as they apply to j. Edgar hoover, famously this unaccountable bureaucrat. I think we cannot see the deep state as developing outside of a broader analysis of state development, the fbis own greatest moments of expansion. They were also the greatest moments of expansion of the liberal state of the National Security state to some degree. But as i said, the new deal, the great society, these are also moments of empowerment of therv fbi. And i think in particular, we need to really contend with the relationship between unaccountable bureaucrats and elected politician thats support, use the deep state in ways that serve them and to think a little bit about the deep state not simply as a reviled part of politics but one that had enormous popular constituency as well. Folks, we have about 30 minutes for questions. Ill start with you and the panel. No one needs to answer my questions. They may spur a conversation. Then if you have a question, raise your hand and join. My two questions as i thought and listened to our panelists, the first one is, is the deep state a useful term for historians to use . To explain american politics . Is there unwarranted, unelected, unacknowledged power with undue influence in the politics in the periods you all study . If so, where does that power reside . How should we historians discuss it and explain it . I dont think we do well by just critiquing the term. Lets try to understand it in its most useful possibilities. What animates the elements of the deep state narratives . The paranoid style that exists, has always existed in American History, even oddly enough as things like literacy rates have radically improved, Government Transparency increased and overall people have more access to information today than, say, in the first two decades of the 19th century. There are still underlying currents that there are kabals, conspiracies, secret, drivers of u. S. Government policy. So is that what propels those currents in the periods you study if you see them existing . Is it economic disenfranchisement . Is it political . Is it something darker, closer to the darker ends of our nature of ethnocentrism . Globalists and bankers, it is a short leap to jews that are controlling policy. Is it not anything so noble as just people grasping for narratives because they feel theyre not being heard . Id like to just start by thanking all four of you for what hay brilliant panel. So helpful and interesting. And i have a question. I also sort of want to add another element to this sort of bureaucratic structure. What are the components where it tends towards conspiracy and what are the components of the state structure that we now have that actually sort of are built in secret and unaccountability . One technology of the deep state or Something Else is law and not legislation but specifically law made in secret without being subject to review and revision by any democratic process . And we need sort of serious deep work to, you know, for a better word, on the office of Legal Counsel. So the office of Legal Counsel exists within the Attorney Generals Office and the president ial power over war which, of course, matters literally today, precedence are, opinions are created about the Law Enforcementne lawfulness of actions. So there is no law making process that happens in court. And then those precedence get built upon. Right . So this is law that is made generally some opinions are released but a lot of the relevant laws, especially related to president ial power and the use of force is classified classified. If there isment in that is clear state that, is it. I raise this as a question for you about sort of technologies of the state as we have it and especially for beverly but for everyone, you know, to what degree has law been a constraining or enabling feature . So yeah, thats my question. I think thats a great question and important category to think about and sort of build off aarons question of whether the deep state is the term that we want. A term that i think didnt come up so much as the Administrative State. I think that still remains the more useful term. What the deep state contributes that the Administrative State doesnt is that the Administrative State suggests a certain level of transparency whereas the deep state suggests that much of this is going on in secret. So that might be a useful difference. Certainly regulatory Decision Making and the question of whos making most of the decision thats are made, whats going on is not happening. It is not through legislative try to open and reform. So during hoovers and there are all of these elaborate political relationships h theyre formally the only checklist having to go and get the appropriation every year. There were no intelligence committees in congress. And the federal bureaucracy and fbi files. And so that makes them very useful to historians. And so the fact they didnt think anyone was ever going to be able to access what they were doing, their own internal policies, the notes theyre writing on those. But they always operated on the assumption that they had total control internal decisions. One of the most famous examples of hoovers own discretion was around wiretapping and bugging. In which wiretaps were taps through the telephone system were supposed to be approved by the attorney general and they technically were. And physically and different spaces. And it was never subjected to outside scrutiny. Its instruction and entire sphere of autonomous actions. If you were marking his hotel room, you dont need that approved. So the idea that its all as secret as we might like to think it is may not be. So true. Last thing ill say on this question and then open it up is that in the 1970s, there was this very, very concerted effort to build more trans parent structures, the freedom of information act, the fisa cords, enormous Reform Energy that as michael said sort of lasted through the 80s and 90s to some degree at least but was really undone by 9 11. I dont know if it may be one of the end results of a kind of trump battle with the deep state. If i could briefly comment, there is no adversarial process. I think this speaks to some of the persistent themes of our three papers. You know, we tend to right now exist in what we imagine and what feels like a very adversarial political environment. And, i mean, thats long been true. Its no the true solely of our own moment. And, yet, one of the things that i think makes this various this concept of the deep state both attractive and repellent to us is that it seems to operate largely by consent. It is not burdened with the conflicts and contest thats define our open politics. Its sort of governed by administrative procedures and sort of deep he fin tis and the like. We can think of that as a problem and undemocratic but there is something attractive about that. There is something efficient about it. There is something professional about it. Theres kind of way in which it works. I think that sort of explains the sort of different emphasis that be beverly is gichg us. Depending on your point of view, it can either be something that, you know, sort of advances your interests and keeps you safe or it can be snag is a conspiracy. But the lack of add ver takeral process has sipersistently stru americans as undemocratic because they cant engage or change the processes. They cant comment on them often if theyre happening in secret. If i can add a quick thing to that. I think in many ways part of the progressive tradition that produced the Administrative State and then continued on for many, many years and you see this quite dramatically in hoovers career, is the idea that thats going to be the more virtuous part of the state. The state that is professional, that sits outside of the drama of electoral politics, that is somehow going to be acting in the common good as its constructed. This is an enormously popular idea for much of the 20th century. It is the idea that produces a figure like hoover if he is popular. You know, there is anticommunism. But a lot of it is driven, in fact, by this idea that unlike all of these self interested politician thats are always fighting with each other and engaged in the processes, hes able to stand back from that. He was born in washington, d. C. He said never belonged to a Political Party. He never voted. They didnt vote at that point. And right now were seeing a real battle. And whether it is a virtuous tradition after Public Interest that is going to protect us from demagogues and other figures. Zblfr ye yes, sir . Do speak for yourself when you speak, please. University of southern denmark. And so i also come to the sort of notion of the deep state from actually the field of Conspiracy Theory studies. And there the deep state might mean something slightly different from lets say the larger tradition of state. Its much more nefarious. To some extent a newer idea. And perhaps from 1970 answer the new world order. And march of last year. A lot of people think of ideas of, you know, suspicion and National Security state. There are few people and what do you think of that do you think that and the deep states because and theyre coming into exist nens the last state. Its up to you and your remarks about the way that a deep state narrative functions in denmark. Are there also these constant references to military and Intelligence Services . Which is a commonality across the turkish narrative, egyptian narrative and american narrative and the narrative about italy originally, the first argument. It is always military and int l Intelligence Services. It crossed over into they were killing people or arresting people. Is that also the case . Well, denmark is a little different in that sense. In that we always almost had a very sort of high degree of trust in the state. So much of the current it is imported from the United States through x files. Right . Theyre popular. I mean x files has actually had a proven infect on peoples view on the deep state. That is an essential conversation. Do you want to take this one or michael or bev . Let me begin by emphasizing how important it is to make this distinction between whether we talk about it as a political key word or interested in analytical concept. We cannot fix it. It has so many different meanings. It has fantastic meanings and it may have, like, more like a meaning that register with some practices off the state. One thing i tried to do in the talk is emphasize there is some the one genealogy which is about a notion of the due alt that is built into the state once we get to the National Security state and Big Government. And i tried to identify some of the kind of academic theirs that we take serious, president ey eisenhower. So to see this idea is not like an outlandish idea, but there is this tradition that theyre not being used and, of course, even among them talking about the state dualty, there are different ideas. If you read a critique of the nazi state that actual clily kif associates the emergency state. All the terrorists and genocide and thing thez join. This is very different from how people are now talking about the deep side. Thats why what is surprising in the 1950s, he references him to talk about, you know, security hierarchy within the state department. Does he not make an argument about the state department. But he plays around this idea of state dualty. I think there, again, come back to this question about what possible and i just think about dualty is built into it and in the field of the military and security agencies. So that i find is potentially useful idea. What i would also emphasize because aaron talked about the association with the military and the security agents, if you read the story and i use the case of eisenhower, it also invites us to not just think about the state. It also invites us to think about the relationship between the state between state institutions and sectors of the state and what is outside the state. Private industry. If you read scott, he writes about the cartels and banks and other things. So that the argument of the deep state comes from this argument that sort of about, like, relationships between the state and again, this is analytical. Its an invitation to take it more serious. I think on the key word side that, is interlekt youll historyst key words and fantastical conspiracy politics or maybe also pop lift politics which we may think in part is conspiracy but pop lift politics and it is always transcending conspiracy theories. Some of us may also think that kind of that is the pop lift thinking there may somebody analytical promise to these kinds of analysis. If i could just briefly add to that. I dont see this kind of rhetoric about the deep state today as substantially different than the kinds of argument thats were made in the past. One way i may try to prove that claim, one of the key departments within the Church Committee is whether or not cia assassination programs were or were not authorized by the president. Did the president know or not know of the programs which seems to get to the crux of your question. Like, is there something deeper about the present deep state than in the past . The reason i cite that example, it seems to me there is nothing deeper than that basic kind of question of does some kind of legal Constitutional Authority know and authorize the action of a state agency or not . That is a thats the kind of ground level question beneath which you really start to get into the deep, deep state. Right . And i think that question has been there for a long time. You know, quethe question was raised, for instance, around the Manhattan Project and trumans unawareness of the Manhattan Project. The questions have been there for a long time. I think they get back to marys point about, you know, if the law is made in secret, maybe with only two people in and this is a basic fact. And that was the question that was kind and as to whether or not this is part of a sort of legitimate state program, however controversial or unethical it may have been. Two quick things to add on to that. Youre right to ask to distinguish between the general set of the, you know, there is the Foreign Policy blob. And they kind of describe a certain elite world. And other cases were talking about something very, very conspiracy driven. And i think that taking a part of what it is were talking about, it its also interesting to look at debates within institutions that we might or someone might describe as part of the deep state. Michael was suggesting. The fbi and the fbi always held and hoover in particular really held the cia contemporary and nsa. He didnt believe there was enough transparency. It was a much more law bound in part because it was an intelligence agency. But there were lots of battles between different intelligence agencies that are structured differently around who is the nefarious actor . How much accountability there is . What levels of secrecy are operating and really different and subtle visions of how that ought to play out. Thank you. Let us know who you are as well. Ashley neil, university of kansas. My question about the idea of the deep state is analytical category, i think about president nixon and for him he had a true belief about some establishment deep state and that heavily influenced how he thought about policy. I think in a way we need to give credence to this idea because of the effect it has. I wonder what you thought of that kind of concept of deep state of the true belief of it in government and whether there were there were forces acting against him in some respects. He overblew it, definitely. But there were people that wanted to bring him down within inside government. Excellent question. Anybody want to tackle that one . Ill say a couple quick words. Nixon came into office with the very explicit idea that he wanted to politicize the bureaucracy, right . One of the problem is theyve been too insulated to electoral politics. He wanted to make them do what he wanted this em to do and not what they wanted to do. And it was certainly one of the themes of the nixon presidency. I would also say that its onest things that did bring him down in some sense, right . He died in may of 1972. He didnt deal well with the question of fbi succession. Nixon had had a lot of battles with hoover. They were very good friends. He had wanted the fbi to do things that the fbi didnt want to do and that hoover didnt want to do. Many of which were quite political. And so when hoover died, he appointed an outsider to the fbi and the fbi essentially rebelled against this outsider this person they saw as a political operative. You know, most famously the man that was when hoover died, the number three man at the fbi and quickly thought that he should become the fbi director mark felt and really went after nixon famously became deep throat, began leaking. P helped to bring down the nixon presidency. So there is a way in which actually watergate was a product of a kind of rebellion of the bureaucracy deep state conspiracy working in cahoots with the Washington Post just as nixon might have feared they would. And i think that is a story that we ought to take seriously. And i thought of the deep throat, deep state sort of analogy as i was writing this piece. Im glad you mentioned it. I dont think that language around deep throat and deep sourcing, what not, should be overlooked. And i agree with the question. Thats partst point im making in my paper. Trump takes this notion seriously as did nixon. Thats part of the reason why i think people wish to understand our politics and policy making process should also take it seriously. I agree with dirk. You know, it may be wise to establish a parameter around which were going to try to kind of use this category if we want to kind of use it to understand how the state works. One of the things i will briefly say on the nixon and trump sort of approach, it feels to me oftentimes with both those figures that there is a degree of projection going on. As beverly said, nixon trying to politicize them deliberately. If you read through the papers, he scheming in that regard. And one can also i think see the same goes for trump. For instance, his authorization of the investigation into the fbis inquiry. He is politicizing the bureaucracy. And hes both men are doing that because they already regard the bureaucracy us self as political. And, of course, rightly so. It is. You know, the progressive idea that the Administrative State is above politics has its own kind of political ideology baked in. And as outsiders, both nixon and trump were aware of that. They resisted it. And they tried to reverse it. It sort of brings all those things to the surface in a way that theyre not often brought to the surface. If there is reform, perhaps its because both of 70s and today are moments where president s are really battling the bureaucracy in a way that kind of brings these things to the surface. One thing howard baker said during the watergate investigations is that the c. I. A. s involvement is like animals crashing around in the forest. You could hear it. You couldnt see it. Its that same sense that theres things going on just beneath the surface that we can kind of feel but we cant quite understand i think is also true today. And i think the reason thats is happening have to do with the battles between president s and bureaucracies in both those moments. Let me, if i could push the panel to consider my question, you studiously ignored. I am intrigued by the endurance of the darker element. There is a reasonable set of inquiries grounded around there and unwarranted power and does that exist in law or bureaucracy . We agree that is valid work for a historian to undertake. But there is almost always a darker element that says free masons are running the world or one guy in the cia that also controls all standards and also the internet or Something Like this. Right . So on that latter half, what the story of American History is one of slow and Uneven Movement towards better enfranchisement. Better people have more involvement in the political process from from the 18th century to today. Pim have access to more information and the government and state have grown and there is classified stuff. Can you look at the budget, look at president ial proclamations or any speech in ways count do in the 19th century. So people have more access to information. More people have access to their government in one way or another. And, yet, it is there consistently a portion of our society that wants to say this isnt the real power. There is a secret power behind it thats actually driving the train. And so my first question is in the american context specifically, can you comment on that . Is that just is that just one of the biproducts of democracy . But given we see there is internationalist there are narratives of a deep state, is there something deeper going on . Now its possible that there are turkish and american narratives about a Security Service with connections to gangs and the mafia. Because those things exist. It could just be an accurate reading of events. It could also be that there is something deeper, trans national, not specific to one country that wants to explain politics as nefarious, as secret and as the product of a small group that somehow has more power than they should have. Anybody want to tackle it . I want to start. That ill try to keep it short. You know, the easy thing to say would be that this is a way to engage in sort of, you know, attacks against outgroups and jews being the kind of primary villian here. And certainly theres an element of that at work and the figure of george soros and more broadly the figure of the International Finance person is the way that gets introduced. From my point of view it seems what is most surprising is that more often than not the villian is a wasp from the ivy league that speaks multiple languages and has the right credentials. Those have often been the people imagined to be at the center of these kinds of conspiracies. It is a conspiracy. I think that what i would sort of attribute that to is a kind of frustration among broad swaths of the American People that both the constitution itself and the Administrative State that is built on top of it are forms of government. And that strikes Many Americans as undemocratic. I mean i really think that its kind of a simple as that. It is elite rule. But i think it motivated in part that the constitution is a system of government that creates a system of elite rule in large part. It was never designed to be a pure democracy. It is arguably less democratic over time. I think that creates a lot of anger. I think its important to recognize that when it comes to, like, conspiracy thinking that, is the part of politics. We can go all the way back to the 70s and 19th century. I think it goes back. Its a condition of politics. Its not simply done by people who are outsiders and its not always elite. I think every american president believed in a Conspiracy Theory. I think that is just a condition of politics. You have to have zplan xplanatioxpla explanations of the politics and movements in societies. To make sense of them, we have to actually stick to the story and see about what is different at different moments. The second thing about populism, it is another it comes out of a particular moment. Its available as a political language and representative of democracy. When there is a crisis of representation, you can basically set the source of all authorities of people against elites. But also kind of populist persuasion has a hist rich. We can locate the beginnings in the late 19th century. It exceeds populism. It has different ways of expressing itself across the 20th century. Its one way of making sense of it. There are other ways. It is available and has to do with representative democracy. You have to have a political system in which you can sort of argue that the people are not being served by those in power. I think populism has overlap of the conspiracy thinking and it is different. Some of the most interesting literature on populism comes from people studying in other countries. The last thing is that if we talk about the secrets of the deep state, there is something here which is about 20th century which is about the National Security state and the Big Government. There is this idea that was security government you get these you get this built into this. And that is i mean, it registers something about this american state in the 20th century. It is different state than it was before. And at the same time, its interesting. It is politically motivating. Different people from different ends of the spectrum. Eisenhower is the ultimate insider. He has an yidea of misplaced power, hes not on the outside. Right . Hes talking from within. So again, i think this also shouldnt be forwarded into some of the other things. As i try to suggest, there is some overlap with the populism thing. So i think we have to be very careful to distinguish between these different, i think, traditions that are constantly making and remaking themselves. If we want to sort of want to talk about it within, we have to attempt to historical specificity. I think about the particular political crisis and moment of state information and at various points of time. It occurs to me one of the most valuable things we can do is separate between valid and invalid critiques of a deep state. What ive seen is a range of opinions on how useful the term is and how much it actually describes real processes and phenomenon that we all agree exist and can prove with Historical Research exist or existed. And thats very different. From just carelessly throwing away accusations. Were just about out of time. I would like to offer one historian specific pitch on this which returns to what the professor started with on secrecy. One thing that occurred to me is how much the worst parts of deep state narratives reflect one of the additional costs of secrecy in government. So when governments dont declassify records or refuse to release them or dont have the budgets to do the normal declassification and release procedures they agreed on in advance, that radically empowers foam say well since theres no one else saying anything, im sure the Jfk Assassination is controlling lunch, right . It seems like its an additional cost. And, therefore, if youre disgruntled with what you consider to be loose and unfair accusations of distrust and a deep state, maybe, you know, join the cause to get the government to release records and declassify them on time. Thats how we can disprove the crazy claims and prove the very same claims. Do you have any final thoughts . Were just about out of time. I want to give you the last word. Anything you want to close with . All right. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv airing week days. Tonight, beginning at 8 00 eastern, program onz dwight d. Eisenhower. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of world war ii and Dwight Eisenhower is remembered as supreme kbhander. The editor of the papers of Dwight David Eisenhower talks about the leadership style from a west point cadet to president of the United States. American history tv now and over the weekend on cspan3. Every saturday night we take you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy borden is and raise your hand if you ever heard of this murder, the gene harris murder trial before this class . The deepest cause and the lines of the american the tools well also talk about the tools and techniques. And the topics are ranging from every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Impeachment process and now the federal response. Listen on our free radio app. Learn through our social media feeds. Americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. On april 4th, 1939, the treaty was signed in washington, d. C. , the 12 founding members of what came to be known as nato. And edward r. Mur rosel brating the alliance by profiling the people